03 June, 2016

The Bernie Sanders 'tool' already works

Greece's
social security has suffered severe damage after six years of cruel
neoliberalism imposed by the Troika (ECB, IMF, European Commission).
France is in flames because the "Socialists" want to
implement the Greek "model", and the whole Europe walks in
the path of neoliberal destruction that seriously threatens one of
its most fundamental conquers: welfare state.

Yet,
in the metropolis of neoliberalism, Bernie Sanders miraculously
drives the Democrats away from the recipe of destruction. From The
Intercept :

President
Barack Obama endorsed an expansion of Social Security for the
first time on Wednesday. “We can’t afford to weaken Social
Security,” he said during a speech on economic policy in
Elkhart, Indiana. “We should be strengthening Social
Security. And not only do we need to strengthen its long-term
health, it’s time we finally made Social Security more generous,
and increased its benefits so that today’s retirees and future
generations get the dignified retirement that they’ve earned.”
The increased benefits, he said, could be paid for “by asking
the wealthiest Americans to contribute a little bit more. They can
afford it. I can afford it.”

[...]

By
the summer of 2014, a small group of Democratic caucus senators,
led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, started advocating for lifting Social
Security’s payroll tax cap so wealthier people paid more into
the system, and then increasing benefits to seniors. Polling by
advocacy groups found broad support for expansion. This idea
became a central theme in Sanders’s presidential campaign. In
the speech announcing his candidacy, the senator said that
“instead of cutting Social Security, we’re going to expand
Social Security benefits.”

[...]

In
both 2008 and 2012, Obama explicitly campaigned on protecting the
Social Security program and rejecting plans that would cut
benefits. But shortly after re-election in 2012, the Obama
Administration proposed re-calculating the way Social Security’s
cost of living adjustments work. [...] Obama’s backtracking set
off a furious reaction from seniors groups and progressive
activists, who for the next few months mobilized their members to
pressure Congress to reject the proposed change. By April 2013,
2.3 million Americans had signed petitions calling on the
president to back off of chained CPI. The signatures were
presented at a White House rally that featured Sanders, who vowed
to “do everything in my power to block President Obama’s
proposal to cut benefits for Social Security recipients through a
chained consumer price index.” The senator mobilized a wide
coalition or organizations, including veterans, women’s rights
groups, and labor unions to oppose chained CPI.

[...]

Democratic presidential
front-runner Hillary Clinton’s evolution on the issue could also
be traced to Sanders. Clinton initially shied away from the
question of expanding the program, issuing only noncommittal
statements on the issue. But after being directly challenged on
the Social Security program this past February by the Sanders
campaign, Clinton tweeted, “As always, I’ll defend it, &
I’ll expand it.”

It
is obvious that the miracle behind Bernie has a name: American
people. As already mentioned in previous article :

Bernie
has the background and the ability to change the course of the US
politics. He speaks straightly about things buried by the
establishment, as if they were absent. Wall Street corruption,
growing inequality, corporate funding of politicians by lobbies.
He says that he will break the big banks. He will provide free
health and education for all the American people. Because of
Sanders, Hillary is forced to speak about these issues too. And
subsequently, this starts to shape again a fundamental ideological
difference between Democrats and Republicans, which was nearly
absent for decades.

But none of this would have come to
surface if Bernie didn't have the support of the American people.
Despite that he came from nowhere, especially the young people
mobilized and started to spread his message using the alternative
media. Despite that he speaks about Socialism, his popularity
grows. The establishment starts to sense the first cracks in its
solid structure. But Bernie is only the appropriate tool. It's
the American people who make the difference.

There
is no doubt of course that Hillary will abandon immediately any
pro-people policies once (if) she get elected, and follow faithfully
the neocon/neoliberal agenda. Obama has an additional reason to turn
180 degrees to appear that he fully supports a stronger social
security. Now that his term is ending, he simply wants to leave a
good name behind.

Yet,
the American people through Bernie, managed to achieve a significant
victory. It forced Democrats to change rhetoric and start shaping (at
least theoretically) a different ideological framework, away from the
monopoly of the destructive neoliberal doctrine. This shows that,
even if Bernie lose the chance to be the next US president, the real
change has already started, and it's up to the American people to
continue the struggle until the final victory against the
establishment of plutocracy.